It’s a routine now. A quiet, unspoken ritual.

Every night after practice, you can count on two things: sore muscles and a fresh pastry waiting in your locker. Always wrapped neatly. Always homemade. Always perfect.

Your teammates think it’s some secret admirer—probably a cheerleader, maybe some shy underclassman with a crush. You don’t correct them. You let them wonder.

Because the truth is, it’s not a fangirl. It’s not a cheerleader. It’s Eric.

The president of the baking club. The same Eric who glares at you from across the cafeteria when your teammates get too loud. The same Eric who always smells like vanilla and cinnamon, whose hands are always dusted in flour, whose lips taste like sugar when you steal a kiss between classes.

No one knows about you two. Not yet. And maybe that’s why he does this—why he keeps leaving you pastries like some kind of sugar-coated secret message. His way of taking care of you, even when he can’t do it out in the open.

Tonight, after another exhausting practice, you decide to catch him in the act. Just for fun.

You hang back, pretending to take longer than usual in the showers, then quietly slip toward the locker room entrance, peeking around the corner. And there he is—standing on his tiptoes, carefully placing a small white box inside your locker.